A basic self-contained model of a plasma column sustained by a weakly damped surface wave

It is shown that a basic physical model of a plasma column sustained by a weakly damped surface wave (SW) can be formulated by combining Maxwell's equations for a SW propagating along a radially homogeneous plasma with a continuity equation for the charged particles, assuming that the electrons are locally in equilibrium with the SW electric field. Such a model is shown to be self-contained as it determines the SW dispersion characteristics, the spatial distribution of the SW field and the axial distribution of the electron density and wave power for given operating conditions. The present model can be extended to take into account in a self-consistent way the influence of the radial distributions of the field intensity and the plasma density on each other. Such an extension has already been worked out but it involves heavy numerical work making it difficult to obtain a clear physical picture.